CHICAGO—It began with a dunk. Oh, that isn’t quite right. That’s not even close. A dunk? What Keith Appling conceived in the second half of Michigan State’s Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal game against Iowa was a dunk like “The Godfather” is a movie or St. Peter’s Basilica is a building.

This was a towering achievement, a masterpiece, the feel-good moment of the 2012-13 college basketball season.

“I knew he was going to dunk,” MSU freshman guard Denzel Valentine told Sporting News. “But I didn’t know he was going to dunk it like that.”

Appling apparently decided Michigan State’s continuing offensive struggles had continued long enough, and so he took the ball and the rim and a bit of Melsahn Basabe’s pride into his hands. Appling split a trap, crossed over his dribble from the left to the right, tore down the lane and flew to throw down a dunk that electrified the capacity crowd at the United Center and, symbolically at least, commenced a rally that carried the Spartans to a 59-56 victory and a spot against Ohio State in Saturday’s semifinal.

To Basabe’s credit, he tried to challenge Appling’s plan, but through no fault of his own just made the scene too late. That, too, was symbolic. Iowa found its rhythm in the season’s final weeks, winning seven of nine games entering Friday’s matchup with the Spartans. But this game turned out too much like many of the most challenging games that preceded it, with the Hawkeyes (21-12) presenting an impressive challenge but losing close.

“We just tried to keep our poise,” Iowa guard Roy Devyn Marble said. “But they knocked down the shots, and we didn’t.”

It’s not as though Iowa was completely destroyed by that play, and it’s not as though everything Michigan State did from that moment on was ideal. After Appling dunked—that word again—with 17:01 left, the MSU deficit was seven points. It twice grew as large as 12 on a couple of baskets by Zach McCabe.

However, Appling’s play unleashed a brash confidence that had been hidden too long in this game. It only was the start of a series of almost ridiculously spectacular plays for the Spartans, who went on a 22-2 tear from the 10:03 mark until 1:52 remained. There was Gary Harris’ dunk with 8:29 left, which had to settle for like “best supporting dunk” because of what Appling had done. There was Harris’ leaner from the left side of the lane at the 7:47 mark, which was a classic I’ve-got-game maneuver.

And then there was the perfect execution on a down-screen set against a 2-3 zone defense Iowa presented with 4:11 left, which opened Harris for a 3-pointer that gave MSU a lead it had chased throughout the game—though not always eagerly—and ultimately never surrendered.

“We didn’t play good, but I’m telling you, you have to give Iowa a lot of credit for that,” MSU coach Tom Izzo said. “They made our life miserable tonight.

“You have to have one of those letdown games, and boy we haven’t had many where we could just play average and win. We deserved to get beat, and we found a way to win. I take it as a steal.”

Michigan State won while shooting 38.6 percent from the field and making only 3-of-15 from 3-point range. And Iowa was not without spectacular plays of its own, although its best was a bit less conventional.

Angry at a call or the way the game was turning, Hawkeyes coach Fran McCaffery tore off his sportcoat late in the game and had it slip out of his hands and onto the court. And not just directly over the sideline, either. It was out there. But one of the Hawkeyes’ players—it appeared to be senior Eric May—alertly swept the jacket into the bench area before a referee could see it.

A technical might have finished Iowa, but instead the Hawkeyes recovered most of the way from an eight-point deficit when the Spartans committed turnovers on consecutive possessions inside the final two minutes. A 3-pointer by forward Aaron White and a putback by Marble helped the Hawkeyes advance to within a single point of the lead.

When White was called for a tough foul against Harris, MSU stretched it back to a 3-point game, and two decent looks at a tying jump shot did not fall for the Hawkeyes. So they missed a chance to become one of those conference tournament darlings: A team that has begun to enjoy the game, that has found a formula that works on the floor, that has gotten hot or maybe just gotten better and whose sparkling late play convinces observers of its worthiness for an NCAA Tournament bid. They’re still trying, though.

“It’s clear with what we’ve done that we should be in the NCAA Tournament,” McCaffery said. “When you look at all the numbers, they bear out that we should be in.”

The Hawkeyes had not given you all that much reason to think about them the first four months of the season, and that is their predicament at the moment. They played only two non-league games against opponents that are NCAA Tournament-caliber and split them. They played a whole batch of Big Ten games against opponents of that quality. They earned four top-50 wins at home but lost to every significant opponent they played away from Carver-Hawkeye.

They lost four games by four or fewer points to NCAA Tournament-caliber teams. Make that five.

“If you blow teams out all the time all year long, when it gets into close games you haven’t been there,” Spartans guard Travis Trice said. “This year, we’ve kind of lived in this situation.”